


And Again

by GrayJay



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 18:41:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6621916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayJay/pseuds/GrayJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Did something happen?” Foggy asks. “Is something going to happen?” He stops, and Matt can feel Foggy searching his face for some kind of response. “Am I <em>dead</em>?”</p><hr/><p>Time travel for neither fun nor profit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/1296.html?thread=1511696#cmt1511696
> 
> (Somehow I forgot to cross-post this for something like ten months. Whoops. Could be a prequel to [Father's Day](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4214856) if you squint right.)

Matt manages to get as far as the alley behind his building before his knee gives out. On the ground, he pauses to take inventory: three ribs cracked, and the split above his eyebrow is pouring blood in a way that makes him briefly grateful that eyesight isn’t an issue. He can feel something grinding in his knee, and the watery flap of torn connective tissue. There’s a set of twin slashes on his left forearm, both deeper than he realized; and his shoulder--ah, well. Nothing that’ll kill him, so he drags himself up by the railing and starts to make his way up the fire escape.  
  
He’s halfway to the first landing when the air pressure rises viciously enough to double him over, hands to his ears, equilibrium gone. There’s a noise, a shuddering, unearthly whine Matt can feel in his fillings. Suddenly the world on fire is an inferno, overwhelming, illegible. Matt curls in on himself, gasping, half gagging.  
  
In the alley, someone stumbles and retches. Matt struggles to stay silent, to breathe through the acrid stench. After a moment, his ears finally pop, and the world clears enough for him to make out two heartbeats, somewhere to his left.  
  
“It’ll pass in a minute.” The voice is deep and smooth--Mid-Atlantic accent layered over just a trace of flat Midwestern vowels.  
  
“Ah, _God_ ,” says a second voice, acid-raw. Matt’s radar is still haywire, so he focuses on the heartbeats: one racing, the other steady.  
  
The owner of the second voice coughs and spits. Matt rolls to a crouch on the landing, tries to locate the newcomers. He hears a rasp, feels a faint vibration that must be the sick one leaning up against the old brick of the building. The man’s heartbeat evens out faster than Matt’s expecting, faster than it should.  
  
“Are you all right?” asks Mid-Atlantic.  
  
“Senses are a mess,” says the other guy. Like Mid-Atlantic, his accent has layers--educated, trained toward neutral--but if there’s anything Matt knows, it’s the sound of the Kitchen. There’s something familiar about the guy’s voice, and Matt wishes his head would clear, because he _knows_ he knows it. From the courthouse, maybe; or Columbia. “Gimme a sec, and I can-- _shit_.” Matt hears the guy straighten, suddenly alert. “He’s here.”  
  
Mid-Atlantic’s heart picks up. “You said you’d be out.”  
  
“ _I should be_ ,” growls the local boy. “Couldn’t you have--made us invisible? Or something?”  
  
“ _Very funny_ ,” Mid-Atlantic hisses. Matt’s radar is starting to resolve again, finally, and he gets a clearer bead on the two men. Local’s about Matt’s height, built like an athlete. Mid-Atlantic is tall and thin, dressed in--some kind of Halloween costume, maybe, a fucking _cape_ with a high, pronged collar. He smells like sandalwood and something Matt can’t place anywhere in his frame of reference--which should be impossible, but Matt’s head’s still ringing, and he’s not sure which of his senses he can really trust right now.  
  
“You know what I mean,” says Local. “And don’t bother whispering. He can hear us.” He turns and faces Matt. “Hey. We’re friends.”  
  
Matt straightens up and feels his way down the fire escape, hoping the slow steps come off as menacing, that they can’t tell how heavily he’s leaning on the railing. Even with his radar back, he feels like he’s underwater.  
  
“What the hell _was_ that?” he asks. His voice is too loud in his ears.  
  
“You look terrible,” says Mid-Atlantic. “Although I really don’t know why that surprises me.”  
  
Local snorts out a half laugh. “Any fight you can crawl away from,” Matt thinks, and realizes Local has just said it aloud; but before he can follow the train of thought any further, his knee gives out again, and he has to grab at the fire escape to keep himself upright. So much for _menacing_.  
  
“Who are you?” Matt’s trying his damnedest to make it come out like a growl instead of a gasp. “What the hell is this?”  
  
“This is insane,” says Mid-Atlantic. “We need to leave. Now.”  
  
Local shakes his head. “Look at him. He’s completely disoriented. He’s going to get himself killed like this, and I’m not sure where that puts me, but I’m not eager to find out.” He edges closer, and Matt drops into the closest he can come to a fighting stance, back to the fire escape. “Whoa. Matt. Calm down.” He raises his hands, placating. “We’re on your side. Listen. You know I’m telling the truth.”  
  
“We don’t have time for this,” interrupts Mid-Atlantic. He starts talking in a language Matt doesn’t recognize. The sandalwood smell thickens until it’s cloying; and the last thing Matt thinks before he passes out is, _How does this asshole know my name?_


	2. Chapter 2

Consciousness comes back thick and slow, filtered through the syrupy copper tang of blood and the familiar leather smell of his couch.  
  
“Don’t get up,” Matt hears himself say. His voice is muffled, and, more alarming, he can’t feel himself speaking. _Should call Claire_ , he thinks, and reaches for the burner phone, but it’s not in his pocket.  
  
“You’re stable,” he tells himself. “You can call her in the morning.” Matt’s glad that apparently he’s on the ball, even if he still can’t tell if he’s talking aloud or in his head. Maybe he’s had some kind of psychotic break. It’s probably overdue.  
  
“I’m losing my mind,” he says--aloud, this time; he can feel his tongue against his teeth, the scrape of his vocal cords.  
  
“You’re not losing your mind,” says a new voice, with a Mid-Atlantic accent. _Midwest_ , Matt thinks, and between that and the smell of sandalwood, he remembers--  
  
“Alley. You were in the alley. What did you do to me?”  
  
“Matt,” he hears his own voice say. “Lie the hell down.” There’s no way Matt’s going to listen to himself when he’s clearly _out of his damn head_. He focuses on the creak of his cracked ribs and drags himself somewhere closer to upright.  
  
“Am I always this much of a pain in the ass?” he hears himself say. If this is some kind of out-of-body experience, it seems profoundly unfair that he can still feel every torn ligament and cracked bone.  
  
Mid-Atlantic laughs, low and melodic. “And now you know how the rest of us feel.”  
  
“Who the hell _are_ you?” Matt asks, again. Has he been _drugged_? In the alley, maybe, some kind of gas?  
  
“It’s okay,” he hears himself say. The figure on one of the barstools--the shorter one--walks over and kneels next to the couch. “Matt. I need you to listen to me for a minute. Can you do that?”  
  
“Okay,” says Matt. “Sure, voice in my head. Let’s do this.”  
  
“I’m not a voice in your head,” he hears his voice say. “I--here. This’ll be simpler.” Someone grabs his hand, holds it to a face. He traces the contours, fingers stiffening as he recognizes the arch of the nose, the angle of the jawline. There’s _no way_ this is real, just no way.  
  
“I’m hallucinating,” he tells the voice. “You drugged me, or the jerk with the crowbar hit me harder than I thought, and I’m--this is bad. This is really bad. I have to--” He reaches for the mask and feels fresh stitches where fabric should be, which means, _oh, God_ , they know who he his, where he lives, and--  
  
“You’re not hallucinating,” says Mid-Atlantic. “Matt, my name is Stephen Strange. My associate, as you may have gathered--”  
  
There are footsteps downstairs, and Matt and his doppelganger tense in perfect unison, listening for the familiar heartbeat and stride. “Foggy,” the doppelganger says. “ _Damnit._ ”  
  
Matt tries to work his way to his feet. Foot, since his knee won’t hold weight; and he ends up having to grab Doppelganger’s shoulder to stay upright. “If you touch him, I will kill you,” he tells Doppelganger and his buddy. “I will kill you until you are dead,” he repeats, louder, even though he’s pretty sure that the fact that he’s still hanging onto Doppelganger dulls the threat a little.  
  
“Oh, my God,” Doppelganger snaps. “I’m not going to hurt _Foggy_.” He sounds almost offended. “No one is going to hurt Foggy.” His heartbeat is even, but hallucinations probably don’t even have tells anyway. _Better safe than sorry_. Matt pushes him away, and limps toward the door.  
  
Doppelganger sighs. “ _Damnit_ , Matt. Strange, could you please--”  
  
Strange starts talking in the unfamiliar language again, and there’s the sandalwood again, and then nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

“Okay,” says Foggy. “Let me go over this _one more time_. You--” he points at Matt-- “--are _him_ \--” a nod to the unconscious Matt on the couch-- “--from the _future_.”  
  
“Exactly,” says Matt. He smirks over at Strange. “I told you he’d take it well.” Even ten years younger, still getting used to the mask, Foggy’s a rock in a storm, and Matt feels a sudden swell of pride. “I told him you’d take it well,” he tells Foggy.  
  
“Oh, this is not me _taking it well_ ,” says Foggy. “This is me freaked out past the point of actually freaking out, and back through the other side.”  
  
“Nah,” says Matt, “You’re doing fine.” Which is true: he can tell from Foggy’s heartbeat, from the angle of his head and the set of his shoulders. “Good old Foggy.”  
  
“Yeah,” says Foggy. “Good old Foggy. And this guy--this guy is some kind of _sorcerer_? That’s a real thing?” He points at Strange. “Do you have any idea what he’s wearing, Matt? Because let me tell you, it makes your stupid costume look downright understated.”  
  
“So I gather,” says Matt.  
  
“And you’re here for-- _floor plans_.”  
  
“Right,” says Matt. “Because there’s a cult that--”  
  
“You know what?” says Foggy. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know why you want them. Because no matter what the answer is, it’s going to be terrible.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Why do you keep looking at me like that? Sorry. Not looking, obviously. Unless you’re not blind in the future?”  
  
“I’m still blind,” says Matt.  
  
“Bummer,” says Foggy. “Still, though. You know what I mean.”  
  
“Foggy, I have no idea what you mean,” Matt lies. He’s trying to keep himself from analyzing every nuance of Foggy’s smell, the way he’s breathing, hunting for traces of what’s waiting down the line. “Looking at you like what?”  
  
“I don’t know!” says Foggy. “You tell me, buddy, because it’s pretty creepy.” His heartbeat is speeding up, and Matt reminds himself that even if _he_ could sense something, the Matt of ten years ago didn’t have his extra decade of experience, or the benefit of hindsight. Even if there’s something to sense, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s his fault. _Unless it is._  
  
“Did something happen?” Foggy asks. “Is something going to happen?” He stops, and Matt can feel Foggy searching his face for some kind of response. “Am I _dead_?”  
  
“No,” says Matt. “Nothing’s going to happen. Don’t worry about it.”  
  
“Right,” says Foggy. He glances back at the Matt on the couch. “You do know how weird this is, don’t you? Or is time travel just a thing we do in the future? Are there also flying cars? Because I would really like there to be flying cars.”  
  
“Not really,” says Matt, as Strange snaps, “ _Absolutely not_.”  
  
“Okay,” says Foggy. “I can live without the flying cars. Do I remember this? I mean, will I remember this?”  
  
Strange shrugs. "He just shrugged," Foggy tells Matt. "Which you knew. Seriously, though. Do you know? Am I going to remember this?"  
  
“No way to know until we get back,” says Matt. “Time travel’s slippery. If you're that worried, I guess Strange could do something--you could do something, right?” He wants to tell Foggy that there’ll be floating cars. That this story has a happy ending. That any stories have happy endings.  
  
They still might, he guesses. The line he’s trying to walk back in his own time--optimism for Foggy, realism for himself--is starting to feel more like a garrote.  
  
“I could do something,” affirms Strange. “Although, honestly, I don’t anticipate the necessity, as long as we’re relatively careful with what we say.”  
  
Foggy turns back to Matt. “Do _you_ remember this?”  
  
“No,” says Matt, “But I have a hell of a concussion. I’m not going to remember much about tonight, regardless. Well. Not his version of it, anyway.” He senses Foggy tensing up, and _oh_ , he’d forgotten how much Foggy used to worry. Still does, really, but here in the past, his concern is still painfully sharp, not the anxious resignation it’ll eventually settle into. “It’s okay. I’m fine. Will be fine. As you can see.” _What if we caused it?_ he wonders, for a sickening second. _What if it’s because of some kind of temporal anomaly?_  
  
“Sure,” says Foggy. “Because if there’s anything going back in time to pick up paperwork demonstrates, it’s how wholly intact your judgment has remained. I would like it noted for the record that I did not sign up for _any_ of this.”  
  
“I know, buddy,” says Matt. “I know.”


	4. Chapter 4

Matt has forgotten how byzantine his filing system was before Becky. It’s all spatial relations and loose association and muscle memory, organized by no rules he can recognize in retrospect.  
  
“This is a nightmare,” says Foggy. He’s halfway through a mountain of papers that mostly seem to be from the Miller foreclosure suit. “Next time I’m in the mood for petty revenge, I’m going to tell Karen that you use takeout menus as dividers.”  
  
The name knocks Matt back like a blow. Of course Karen’s still alive here. Matt hadn’t thought of that, and now that he has, it’s all he can do to keep from pulling out his phone and dialing the number that he still hasn’t deleted and probably never will. _Karen_.  
  
“Matt?” asks Foggy. “You there?”  
  
“I swear the menus made sense at the time,” Matt tells Foggy, forcing himself to keep his tone light. “Something about the textures. Or the smells, maybe? Anyway, there was a system. I’m pretty sure there was a system.” He tries to push Karen out of his mind; slides aside the _Thai Garden_ stack and starts in on _Luigi’s_. “Look, maybe can we just take it as read that I’m an idiot?”  
  
“Way ahead of you, buddy,” says Foggy. He reaches out on reflex to ruffle Matt’s hair, but stops and pulls back at the last second; and Matt wishes he could think of any way to tell him that it’s okay, that they still do that, without making it weird.  
  
There’s a shrill whine of a kettle from the kitchen, and a minute later, Strange pops his head around the corner, mugs in hand. “Tea?”  
  
“God, yes,” says Foggy. “And _thank you_. You’re my favorite wizard, and I take back everything I said about your cape.”  
  
“Sorcerer,” says Strange, “And you’re welcome.” He hands the second mug to Matt. “Any luck?”  
  
The blend in the mug is one that Matt recognizes from Strange’s sanctum and absolutely nowhere else, and he wonders if that means Strange carries his own tea around with him; and if so, whether it’s a sorcerer thing or just a Stephen Strange thing. “None yet. I don’t suppose you’ve got a spell for this?”  
  
Strange pokes dolefully at a pile of papers. “The temporal ecosystem is fairly delicate, as such things go. I’d prefer not to tempt fate with frivolous use of magic.”  
  
“Right,” says Foggy. “Don’t pee in the timestream.”  
  
Matt wonders just how badly it would break the universe if he called Karen. If he didn’t even say anything, just listened to her voice. If he warned her. If he made Strange find a way for them to take her back with them. _Karen Page is dead_ , he tells himself, as firmly as he can. _This is an echo. A recording. Listen, but don’t touch. Don’t overwrite the tape._ And, sheepishly: _Kirsten would kill you._  
  
In the next room, he can hear the other Matt’s heartbeat and breathing shift as he starts to wake up. _Tell her you love her_ , Matt thinks silently at his past self. _Tell her. Tell her. Tell her._ He will eventually, Matt knows; but here, now, knowing that she’s _alive somewhere_ , he’d give damn near anything for the grace of even a single extra day.  
  
The other Matt groans and shifts on the couch, and Matt can hear his ribs grind while he pulls himself gingerly up, and then a thump and a swear as he stands too fast and stumbles into the coffee table. Foggy sighs. “One of us should probably go talk him out of doing anything stupid.”  
  
“That’d be you, buddy,” Matt tells him. “He doesn’t know Doctor Strange yet, and talking myself out of doing anything stupid isn’t exactly my strong suit.” He’s acutely conscious of the hand he’s got in his pocket, still thumbing the edge of his phone.


	5. Chapter 5

The file they’re after--the him from the future, and the guy who claims to be some kind of fucking _sorcerer_ \--is completely forgettable: floor plans from a scrapped construction project, lost marginalia from a low-stakes zoning dispute. Matt finds it exactly where it should be, between a stack of photocopies of city statutes and a menu for the Ethiopian place up the street.

“Are you all right?” he hears Strange ask the Matt from the future, across the room.

The other Matt shakes his head and lies-- "I'm fine--" then amends: “It’s all--a little much.” Matt hears him dig something out of his pocket--a cell phone--and pass it to Strange. “Would you mind? Until we get back?” He wonders who Matt’s trying not to call--who he’ll wake up in ten years missing so badly that he’d rip apart time to talk to them again. So many questions, and he knows he won’t get answers for a single damn one.

Except for the big one, of course: that Matt himself makes it, at least for now. He wonders if that should be more of a relief than it is.

Across the room, Strange gives Future Matt’s shoulder an awkward pat, and Matt tenses under his hand.

“Here’s your file,” says Matt, a little too loudly, to spare them the extended silence. It’s the least he can do, under the circumstances. “What do you need this for, anyway?”

“You really don’t want to know,” says Strange.

Future Matt nods in agreement. “You really don’t.”

Matt’s too tired to argue, or even really care. Whatever it is, he’ll deal with it in ten years.

By the time Strange and the other Matt leave, Matt’s back on the couch, half asleep. They go outside, but he still feels the shift in air pressure--gentler this time, as time snaps back to its proper shape.

He can hear the heartbeats around him, alarm clocks going off, people shuffling sleepily through the morning. Matt feels his watch, absently--it’s almost seven, and he can hear Foggy puttering around his kitchen, making coffee.

“None for me?” Matt asks, when Foggy emerges with a single mug.

“You’re going back to sleep, buddy,” says Foggy. Matt makes a token protest, but his head and knee are throbbing, and he’s finally found a position where it doesn’t hurt to breathe, and the idea of just _staying_ is too seductive to resist.

Foggy settles down in the chair and slurps his coffee. “So, wanna talk about that ball of weird?”

“Not really,” says Matt. The night is already starting to blur out from under him.

“You looked pretty good, though,” says Foggy. “Like, I wasn’t really expecting you to make it ten years out with all your limbs and everything.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” says Matt, but he’s pretty much on the same page.

“And you’re friends with a _wizard_. And apparently wizards are a thing. So, _that’s_ awesome.”

“Mm,” says Matt. “Didja ever find out what they were doing?”

Foggy shrugs. “Something involving a cult? I didn’t ask--I figured, the less we knew, the better.”

“Smart,” says Matt. “He sounded so--sad.” He wonders again who the Matt from the future was trying not to call.

Foggy doesn’t say anything, just reaches over and ruffles Matt’s hair; and Matt lets himself slip the rest of the way into sleep.

* * *

“Hail the conquering heroes,” says Foggy, when they materialize back in the office.

Matt offers him a wan thumbs up. The trip back to the present was easier, but he still hardly makes it to the trash can before throwing up.

By the time he’s done, Foggy is kneeling next to him with a glass of water. Matt rinses and spits, and the space around him gradually resolves into familiar shapes.

“Rough flight?” Foggy asks. Matt hears Strange say something about time travel and heightened senses, then feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Your phone,” says Strange. Matt fumbles it out of his hand, and puts it down on the floor.

“Now that we have the papers, I have an exorcism to finish,” Strange says. “Thank you, again, for your help, Matt.” He nods once, and disappears in a whisper of sandalwood.

Foggy leans back against the cabinet. “So. Wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” says Matt. His head is pounding, and he feels like he could sleep for a week. “I wanted to call Karen. I wanted to _so badly_.”

Foggy puts an arm across Matt’s shoulder: lighter than it should be, but still solid. Ten years of lies and scars, fights and faked deaths and fucking _cancer_ , and Foggy’s still a rock in a storm. “I know, buddy.”

“We were so young,” Matt tells him. “Were we ever really that young?”

Foggy laughs. “My question is: How did we get this _old_?”

“One year at a time, buddy,” says Matt. “Same as everyone else.” Foggy doesn’t say anything to that, just reaches up and ruffles Matt’s hair, and they sit in the empty office and wait for the future to come.

 


End file.
